Peter Rowley-Conwy

Peter Rowley-Conwy (born 1951, Copenhagen) is an anthropologist, Professor of Archaeology at Durham University

Biography

Peter Rowley-Conwy was born of Welsh and Danish parents. He was educated at Marlborough College, and then read Archaeology at Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating in 1973. For his PhD (awarded in 1980) he studied the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Denmark, under the supervision of Professor Grahame Clark. After completing his PhD, from 1982 to 1985 he worked on the Tell Abu Hureyra project, directed by Anthony Legge, and later held the position of Research Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge (1986-88, 1989-90). He spent the year 1988-89 as an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Memorial University of Newfoundland. In 1990, Rowley-Conwy was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, where he was promoted to Professor in 2007.

Rowley-Conwy’s research has focussed on hunter-gatherers and early farmers, in particular the nature of the transition between these cultural episodes. He also has an interest in the history of archaeological approaches to that period. A specialist on faunal remains and their contribution to archaeology, he has published widely on European material, including in Scandinavia [Rowley-Conwy, P. 1999. 'Economic prehistory in southern Scandinavia.' In "World Prehistory. Studies in Memory of Grahame Clark", eds. J. Coles, R.M. Bewley and P. Mellars, 125-159. Oxford University Press (Proceedings of the British Academy 99).] and Britain, [Legge, A.J. and Rowley-Conwy, P.A. 1988. "Star Carr Revisited. A Re-Analysis of the Large Mammals". University of London, Centre for Extra-Mural Studies.] and analysed the major faunal assemblage from Arene Candide in Italy. [Rowley-Conwy, P. 1997. 'The Animal Bones from Arene Candide. Final Report.' In "Arene Candide: Functional and Environmental Assessment of the Holocene Sequence", ed. R. Maggi, 153-277. Rome: Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali.] Since 2000 he has run the Durham Pig Project, which has examined pig domestication around the world by a variety of means. [Albarella, A., Dobney, K., Ervynck, A. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. "Pigs and Humans. 10,000 Years of Interaction." Oxford: Oxford University Press.] Beyond Europe, his work on the animal bones from Tell Abu Hureyra has been published. [Legge, A.J. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 2000. 'The exploitation of animals.' In "Village on the Euphrates, From Foraging to Farming at Abu Hureyra". eds. A.M.T. Moore, G.C. Hillman and A.J. Legge, 475-525. Oxford University Press.] Rowley-Conwy has collaborated in a book on the anthropology and archaeology of hunter-gatherers. [Panter-Brick, C., Layton, R. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 2001. "Hunter-Gatherers. An Interdisciplinary Perspective." Cambridge University Press.] His work on the remains of agricultural crop plants from Qasr Ibrim (in collaboration with Dr. Alan Clapham) is in course of publication. [Clapham, A.J. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. 'New discoveries at Qasr Ibrim, Lower Nubia.' In "Fields of Change. Progress in African Archaeobotany", ed. R. Cappers, 157-164. Groningen Archaeological Studies 5.] His Danish background has enabled him to study the original publications on the 3 age system of Stone-Bronze-Iron Ages, put forward by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen and others in the 1830s. He has written a book on this subject, and on its differential impact on the archaeological communities of England, Scotland and Ireland. [Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. "From Genesis to Prehistory. The archaeological Three Age System and its contested Reception in Denmark, Britain and Ireland." Oxford University Press.]

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